Crime branch team begins Adarsh probe

The Mumbai police crime branch began its investigation into the disappearance of four pages from a file on the controversial Adarsh housing society with a team of senior crime branch officers visiting the urban development department at Mantralaya on Monday.

mumbaiUpdated: Nov 30, 2010 00:49 IST

HT Correspondent Hindustan Times

The Mumbai police crime branch began its investigation into the disappearance of four pages from a file on the controversial Adarsh housing society with a team of senior crime branch officers visiting the urban development department at Mantralaya on Monday.

The team comprised joint commissioner of police (crime) Himanshu Roy, additional commissioner of police (crime) Deven Bharati and officers from Unit I of the crime branch.

The officers refused to speak to the media. Sources in Mantralaya said the team took stock of the movement of the file before the pages containing crucial notings and signatures of then CM Vilasrao Deshmukh and department secretary Ramanand Tiwari, were found to be missing.

The urban development department had lodged a police complaint on Saturday after it discovered four pages of the 2003 file were missing.

The missing notings approved two controversial decisions on Adarsh society — reducing the width of the public road leading to the building to accommodate the structure and changing the status of the land from reserved to residential.

Sources said the team was told that the file had passed at least 10 desks since 2003 before the notings were made. The file was kept in the records shelf only after the project got a go-ahead.